 Good morning, everyone. This is the morning meeting of the House of Appropriations. We're going to start off first thing, bill that has been sent to our committee S338. It's a Justice Reinvestment Bill. And we have Representative Emmons and Representative Shaw joining us. And we may have another member from their committee joining us to do a walkthrough of this bill. When we're completed with this bill, we're going to move right back to trying to finish up our work on the transition quarter year budget. We're really close. And this afternoon at 3.30, we've been asked to do a presentation to the caucus of the whole with as much as we have, with as much as finished. And then we could finish up on Wednesday if needed. But if we're lucky, we may be able to just do it this once this afternoon at 3.30. So we're here from 8.30 to 10.30. And then we're coming back from 1 to 3. And then on the floor at 3.30 for the caucus of the whole. So let's start with our first item on the agenda. Welcome, Butch and Alice. And who is going to do the walkthrough of your work on the Justice Reinvestment Bill? I think the best way to start, Butch is going to be doing for the record representative Alice Simmons, chair in corrections and institutions. I think for the best thing to do is start with Butch. He's going to do a quick walkthrough of the first couple sections of the bill that deal with internal operations of DOC. If Kirk comes on, there's some report back to corrections towards the back of the bill. And then at the very end, there is the appropriations section. And we picked up the appropriations section that came out of the Senate Judiciary Committee as a place to start the conversation. Part of this recommend from the Council of State Governments is to put in some initiatives to work people quickly through the correctional system. But the real next step of the Council of State Governments is really working on the community systems and behavioral health in terms of trying to reach these savings that the Justice Oversight, I mean, not Justice Oversight, but the Council of State Governments projects over the next five years. In order to get those savings and reinvest those savings, there needs to be some upfront dollars put in this next year in terms of beefing up our community systems. And that's what the appropriations section in the back of the bill attempts to do. So I'm going to shift over to Butch to give a quick walkthrough of Presumptive Parole and Furlough and good time. We have the bill up in front of us. OK. Welcome, Representative Shaw. Thank you, Representative Toll. Representative Butch Shaw and Pittsburgh for the record. Sitting here today in front of you with S-338, a bill we received from the Senate that has been in the works from that derived from some great work by a committee of folks. Justice Reinvestment Committee that met over the summer. You may remember last year's capital bill authorized that meeting and asked them to work with the Council of State Governments in taking a look at our correction system and see how we can do better work. Some of you may remember Justice Reinvestment 1 that happened in the late 2000s, where we saw that our incarcerated population was creeping upwards with some projections that we would have about 27 or 200 people incarcerated as of today by instituting the changes as suggested in JR01, where our population is down somewhere around 1,500 today. So we're looking at that we're calling this Justice Reinvestment 2 because it's time to take a look and see what we're doing and we did. And so the bill before you talks to some things that we could do to further reduce our population that's incarcerated and some under the control of the commissioner, thus saving money of about there's projected savings from $11 to $14 million by by year 2025. And that's cumulative savings by year 2025 in the Department of Corrections should this bill do what it's intended to do. And I think you'll hear and I know you hear from the chair at the end of this bill why that remember the title of bill is reinvestment. So we need to reinvest some funds to make sure that this all works so we get payback at the end of the process. The bill is very technical and but I'm just going to talk about three of the major sections of the bill. One is the first piece of that the findings and the purpose of the findings and the purpose and you can read those at your leisure. We're going to talk section two forward talks about parole. We currently have a system of parole but we expand it to present the parole where our inmates after they serve their minimum sentence are presumed eligible for parole and that happens in these sections in the technical ways of getting there in the sections. I want to point out that in these sections we do a rollout of the system so we don't overwhelm the parole board and the community services that are currently available. We start with non-listed crimes for a year or two and then we move up to people that might be available that are serving time for listed crimes or more violent crimes. We never allow people serving time for what we call the big 12 crimes which are typically crimes against people to be eligible for a presumptive parole. We move through parole into the furlough sections which starts in section eight of the bill. We currently have furlough, we currently have somewhere nobody can tell us exactly how many furlough statuses we have currently or sub-statuses but it's somewhere around 20 and maybe more. What we're doing here is reducing that number down to three different types of furlough. Furlough is a status of people that are placed into the community but still under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. Basically it's an extension of the prison walls into the community and these folks are on a pretty tight leash and I'll back up just to quit for parole. The parole folks will be under the supervision of the parole board back up by the DOC and that status is a little more liberal and is more successful than actually people out on furlough and through the furlough piece it's very, very technical on how you get there and what happens if you do or don't and that in sections, as I said, section eight forward and then we get to the next big piece of the bill for me is the good time and some of you who have been here a little longer than others may remember good time. That was revoked back in the late or mid to late 2000s because it was too cumbersome to keep track of people received days off their sentence for various rewards that in things that they needed to do while incarcerated and that proved way too cumbersome and it proved the problem with truth and sentencing. We did pass a good time bill. I think it was S119 last year authorizing this. We did ask at the time for a group of folks that could help us determine who should be eligible for good time. They came back to us this year with some recommendations in this section is a lot of current law but it does allow people that are currently serving time to receive good time going forward in the passage and in that section there and it's very technical and allows that gives us the rules and the terms to follow while people are in good time. Butch, can I interrupt you? I apologize. Is there a good time section in this bill that we need to get us to because we were still on section eight? Oh, I'm sorry. Sure, that's up in section 14. Okay, just so that we can follow along with the language is Teresa's role to get there. I'm sorry for going a little bit too quickly. I forget we're on Zoom. So there we go. Okay, up on section 14. That's the good time section in this, as I said, it's pretty technical but it allows offenders to earn seven days for every month that they subscribe and prescribe to the conditions that this section lays out is how they earn this good time. And then, but I'd like to point out here and I think that's where I was when we determined I was going away too fast is that we have taken into consideration victims and victims services all the way through this bill so that the folks that were the victims of these people's crimes understand what's going on and what's happening and give them a voice in any hearings or let them know what's going on with the perpetrator crimes against them. And then we get up into some escape language which is some language that just some cleanup language and then that's it for me on the bill in transitioning to representative Taylor who I see is on now to talk about section 19 and going forward. It started, I will take care of the section that deals with the appropriations which is the last section. Okay, thank you, Alice. Welcome representative Taylor, it's good to see you. Thank you. So we are starting on section 19 with you with racial disparities. Right. Well, as probably, I wasn't quite here but as probably it's been mentioned the whole bill comes from recommendations by the council of state governments justice center. And so the goal was to ground those recommendations and future recommendations on evidence-based research and practices. So to further that goal, S338 sections 19 through 23 they propose ongoing work and report backs from agencies and work groups. There's probably about a half dozen different reports. There's not only a check by checkback on the effects of S338 statute changes but also investigations into racial disparity, data collection, probation, parole, furlough policies as well as future steps. So I'll go through those very briefly. There's quite a few but you'll see that it's a pretty comprehensive look at our criminal justice system for not only the present but for future changes. So section 19 explores current data and identifies additional data to analyze racial disparities in Vermont's criminal justice system. So this is a panel and a group of people working on that. It's particularly important in light of national events now to look into any racial disparities within the criminal justice system. Section 20 is a report on the burden of the new presumptive parole system portions of the bill. It looks into those primarily to see what the effects is on whether there is any administrative burden in the record keeping of that and how it works. Section 21 continues the work of the justice reinvestment working group kind of keeps it going, reestablishes it and gives it a whole bunch of new tasks to about nine different tasks. And they are those nine, I'll be brief on each one. To use the agency of human services information to determine deficiencies in inmate screening procedures, assessments, case planning and proposed solutions to any deficiencies they find. Also in there to investigate offender risk factors and how they can be used to target appropriate services and treatments. The idea is that we're trying to do services and treatment based on the risks of recommitting crimes or a risk to the public. So they wanna make those risks targeted towards specific treatments and services. And so that's being investigated. They're also supposed to figure out how to share data among the various stakeholders of the reinvestment group about risk assessments and treatment programs and to better inform plea agreements, sentencing, probation revocations and decisions along those lines. So the idea there is to better collect data and share that data among the people making decisions about sentencing and treatments and things. They're also going to study probation and how it might be better or a kind of a default to incarceration when there are appropriate community supports. Further, they'll evaluate a program whereby probationer might receive credit on their sentences for time served on probation. This was part of the original proposal to while you're on probation and you're serving time in the community, actually, you would get credit on your sentence. We really battled that one back and forth and finally decided that it needed more research and considerable more thought. Also, the group will explore additional probation options whereby an offender might have their probation reduced or terminated under certain circumstances. And finally, they'll evaluate S3-38's addition of an appeal process for some furlough returns or revocations. That's also a controversial part of the proposal that we thought needed to be looked at more in the future. And so we're having them take a look at it. So by mid-January of 2021, the working group must report on nearly all of those things that I just mentioned. And that's kind of, I believe, a preliminary kind of report. It's not the final report on all their work. They'll continue their work. And by mid-January of 2022, the working group will kind of wrap up their work with another report and any legislative changes that they might have developed. And they're also going to be looking into funding for any future work that they might do or someone else might do. There's a couple about two other reports in section 22 by December 1st of the year 2020 this year. That's coming up pretty soon. The Agency of Human Services is to provide information to the working group on mental health, substance abuse, and behavioral health assessments and how they inform case plans and care of offenders. And finally, section 23, by mid-January of 2021, there's to be a report, the Department of Corrections will report on how to strengthen DOC's policies regarding rewards and punishments and ensure that they follow best practices in response to violations of behavior. That's another thing that came from the Council of State, the Council of State Governments to use more and different incentives, both positive and negative and have that better understood. And implemented. So that's section 23. And the end of the reports, I believe. Thank you, Kurt. And we're going to move Alice, you're going to pick up this piece now. Yes, the appropriation piece, this is section 24. And as I said earlier, we picked up, we just picked up the language as it came out of Senate Judiciary Committee. And this is an attempt to really beef up our community systems. One thing really clear from the Council of State Governments is that for this next step, which you see in S338, for this to be successful for our offenders, they really need more support once they're released back out to the community. And we need to do some initial investments in order to reap those projected savings or afforded costs, whichever way you want to phrase it in the future. And so the Senate came in with a $2 million appropriation. 400,000 will be for risk-based domestic violence intervention program. A million would be evidence-based transitional housing programming and the remainder, which would be 600,000 will be for evidence-based programming for offenders transitioning back into the community, which could include workforce development or other community re-entry supports. The intent back then, this was done in beginning of February, end of January, beginning of February, which seems like about three years ago. It was the intent that these would come from one-time funds that would be available through FY21. So we did not want to lose the thought of doing some initial investment upfront in order for our initiatives to be successful. If we don't do some type of funding at the beginning, we're keeping the status quo in terms of when offenders re-enter into the community. There is not enough support systems out there. And what council state governments is really highlighting and will continue to do their work. This is what Kurt alluded to on the working group working with the council state governments over the next few months, is really looking at the behavioral health and support systems within our community. And I'd really like to emphasize that the Department of Corrections is within the agency of human services. And for folks who are part of the corrections system, they themselves or family members maybe under other parts of the agency of human services, be it Department of Mental Health, be it Department of Economic Services, be it under DAO. And let's have a coordinated approach to these situations. And in conversations with the Interim Commissioner of Corrections, Commissioner Baker, he feels quite strongly that we need to be far apart community systems in order for positive outcomes for our offenders. Because currently what's happening is just not successful for our offenders. And also the public sees when an offender is not abiding by the rules or they lose their housing or they lose their programming for substance abuse or they lose their employment, they blame DOC when it's much more systemic than that. So this is an attempt to at least start the conversation on the appropriations piece and hopefully put some money upfront so that this becomes a successful piece of legislation. And that was our thinking. It's a starting point for discussion and a placeholder for you folks to figure out in this COVID world about the finances. Thank you. Committee members, do you have questions for either Representative Daw, Emmons or Taylor? Dave? Yes, thank you. First, if I could ask Representative Taylor a question and then the chair question. Representative section 22, number one, please. Let me see it. Let me go back. That can't tell you the exact page number but I'm coming up to it here. There it is. Do you see it, Representative? Says... Section 22, section 22, Dave? 22.1, yep. Section 22. Okay, there we go. Yep, thank you. Says the nature of your report. Says the nature and scope of available screening and assessment of mental health and substance abuse needs and how the assessment informs case plans. Just because I'm assessed and screened doesn't mean I get the treatment, does it? And is not whether I got the treatment more important than whether I was assessed or am I missing something? No, just because the screening is kind of universal in many of these cases. When somebody comes into a corrections facility, they're screened and they're also assessed for mental health, things like that. The question is we wanna make sure that those are used appropriately and to target the treatments and services within the community. But it doesn't mean that they won't necessarily get it. They're screened to see whether they need it and they're assessed to see whether they need it. Some of these things have not, we're trying to make sure that those screening and assessments do actually influence the treatment and the services that are available. That's logical and rational. I just didn't see the words and I assumed that was happening, but I wasn't sure. Thank you. Yeah, sure. Now, Alice, if I may, a couple of different questions here. Do you know the caseload ratios or staffing pressures on the probation staff? What's typical and what's not? I know many people have come out, rightly so, of prison during this pandemic period. And where I'm headed on this is that I'm making and I shouldn't, I'll just identify it. I'm making the assumption that the greater my caseloads and the need, the always the pressure to make sure the public are safe. If I'm concerned about you, I'll violate you on a technical violation just to make you, to incarcerate you again. And that's one less worry that I have about keeping the community safe. Is that what drives a lot of the technical violations and if caseload ratios were different, might that be different? Does that make any sense? It does and it's a very complicated answer. Caseloads and ratios are dependent in terms of the risk assessments of the offender and also the seriousness of the crime. We put in some caseload ratios in statute 10 years ago that if a parole, probation officer, field service officer has some very high risk offenders under their caseload, they have a much smaller ratio. And for other situations where the risk is not as high, then those particular field service officers would have a higher caseload. So it really depends the person they're supervising, what their risk factors are, and also the seriousness of the crime they were convicted of. So the caseloads are different. In terms of technical violations, when an offender is released under furlough, furlough is an extension of the corrections facilities walls. They are still incarcerated. We have this particular status of furlough that other states do not have. Most states have probation, which is under the jurisdiction of the courts, incarceration, which is under DOC and parole, which is under the jurisdiction of the parole board. We have a hybrid where the furlough, you're still incarcerated. Just the walls have been extended out to the community. And you have limited freedoms and the offender agrees to those conditions of their furlough. So when there's a technical violation, it could be they shouldn't be going to a certain bar or they shouldn't be going to a certain neighborhood or they shouldn't be using alcohol. And then there's a violation of that where they're going to a particular neighborhood. What happens in most cases is the field service officer will say, okay, you're going to do this this time. We're going to put you on an electronic monitoring bracelet. So we'll give you another chance. And then they violate again. They may instill a two day stay in a correctional facility and let them out. So there's different variations in terms of those technical violations and whether or not they would use that to say to the public, hey, we're really strict here and we're going to violate them and yank them back into correction so that you feel safer. I think that's a real conversation on an individual basis that you really need with field service officers in terms of their jurisdiction. That's hard to answer as a legislator because it's a case by case situation. I appreciate that. Madam Chair, may I just have one more follow up? Yes, you may. Yeah, Alice, do you know the work that will be done in the community? It speaks to transitional housing for a piece of the appropriation. Again, I shouldn't assume. Do you know if an effort has been done to see if we could match global commitment to pay the staffing necessary for the ongoing follow up of the folks, the caseload, there's a lot of the work seems like rehabilitative therapy in a way. It's much more once they're put in under community services. Do you know if we've ever tried to do that before? I'm not aware of that, but that's what we really need to look at. We need to look at bringing more partners to the table here for an offender that's re-entering and not just look to DOC to provide all those services. Do you know who they'll subcontract out to? They would, you know, they could subcontract out to a facility that's run like Phoenix House or Dismas House, other parts, you know, pathways. They do quite a bit of supportive housing. I know the Justice Oversight Committee heard testimony back in November, I believe. And I think part of that $1 million that the Senate put in was to go towards expanding pathways and other parts of the state. What we're really looking at is a wraparound service offender and it has to go away from DOC's budget. Correct. That's where the matching opportunities might be, but thank you. I'll follow up on that. And I think you also have to check if the offender has insurance in terms when they're under furlough if they will qualify for Medicaid. Because once they're incarcerated, they lose all their insurance coverage. Yes, yep. I was thinking once they weren't incarcerated. But thank you. Thank you very much. But that's an incarcerated Senate, so I don't know if being under furlough. Gotcha. Gotcha. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Alice. Kurt, did you have some clarifying information before I move to Marty? Yes, I just wanted to add that they're in addition to what Representative Emman said in response to Representative Yackeloni's question about furlough and bringing them back. There is. Section 23 does include a report done by DOC that will look into that sort of thing and the whole incentives and use of those. So that's part of the proposal. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Marty? Yes, my questions are regarding the appropriations. You described three different areas where you would concentrate the money, domestic violence, transitional housing, and community support. You've given some examples of the transitional housing. I'm curious what kinds of, can you give me details or examples of the kinds of programs that you would use in the domestic violence and the community support areas? Are these just extensions of programs that are already out there? Are you looking for new kinds of programs that might affect persons differently? And who's going to define what those programs are and then how you would distribute this $400,000 and $600,000? First off, on the $400,000, I think some of it would be under current programs. But also, if you look at the language, it's really for risk-based domestic violence and intervention programming that would be certified by the Vermont Council on Domestic Violence. And I would think there would be, we didn't take specific testimony on any of this. This was done more in the Senate Judiciary Committee. But it's to really look at risk-based violence, domestic violence. And they would be also, the network would be giving us an interim report in terms of what progress that they have made. So I'm assuming that some of this will go to current programs and there might be also some new programs for this. Also, in terms of the transitioning back to the community, the remaining $600,000, those could go towards possible workforce development. It could go towards your community justice centers that might go towards diversion. It would look at what's currently in place, but also, do we need some specific programs that need to be beefed up in terms of looking at risk and evidence-based? Because what the council state governments found is that folks may need some particular programming for their risk, but DOC doesn't provide that specific programming. They may provide a program in domestic violence, but it may not be specific enough for that particular offender's needs. So they would put that particular offender into that program and it might help the offender and it might not. And what was limiting DOC in providing those specific programs that were needed was budgets. DOC's budget is not flexible enough or it's not enough to provide those individual programming needs that are really needed. So let's also look at the community for some of that. Does that make sense? Yes and no? Yes, it does, but these appropriations are just further programs that exist or create new programs. What do we anticipate in terms of longer term expenses? Would you anticipate that all of this extra emphasis on programming would need to continue in the future? I mean, this is a one year appropriation. It's a one year. Would we be needing this money? It depends. Yes and no. When we have done justice reinvestment in the past, we did, as Butch mentioned, justice reinvestment one in the 2008, 2009, we initially put in some money to get some programs going. And then once the savings were achieved in bed savings in DOC, those saving dollars were then replacing the initial appropriation that was put in. So it's the savings that are incurred through these initiatives that are then reinvested. But in order to get the programs up and running, you need that initial investment, which is what's here in this bill. And if it, and hopefully the programming will continue, but the funding source would be the savings in DOC budget from bed savings that they're not gonna be shipping people out of state. Cause that's where your bed savings come from as your contract for the out of state beds. Those are how, that's how. Meaning that the DOC budget would remain stable. Correct. The DOC budget would remain stable. You're just not spending on out of state, you're spending it on this instead. Correct, but you're getting more, you're getting more bang for your buck because you're not spending 60,000 a bed or 30,000 a bed for an out of state bed. It's cheaper to do it on the community, I understand. So Alice, I just wanna follow up on that. So the savings would go into reinvesting into these programs that you've outlined. Would there be additional savings beyond that that's anticipated for the state? I don't recall council state governments getting into that, do you Butch? I know that they looked at that 11 to $14 million. They called it avoided costs over the next five years in the DOC budget for that because the folks would not be taking up a bed. And that's true, Alice. Over the next five years, if we saw a 20% reduction, the savings could be a cumulative total of 11 11 to 14 million in it and averted costs to DOC. So as you said, this is a reinvestment. So if we reinvest those savings into community services, I believe we get way more bang for our buck. They just have people love- Yes, I appreciate that, yes. Yeah. Thanks, thank you, Butch. We have Mary, Diane, Marty, were you finished? I don't know, Marty, are you? Yes, okay, Mary and Diane and Chip. Thank you. It's my understanding that the expectation is that any avoided costs or savings within the system will be reinvested into the system, not creating additional funding that we could use elsewhere. And my guess is that maybe over time, but right now it's too speculative. We couldn't say, hey, let's take 20% of that and apply it somewhere else because it's just too speculative. Dave asked the question of whether or not we were using any global commitment money. And the answer is yes, we are right in the proposed budget back in a different time and world and place for FY21 was 821,000 and global commitment money to support the transitional housing. So yes, DOC has already seen that they need to be doing that and I assume we'll continue with, so we can maybe we'll have to figure out how we gross up these dollars or how we manage that money. One of the thing that I wanted to add to the conversation is that in my conversations with the commissioner of the Department of Corrections, and I think he's testified to this in institutions and corrections, is that they're really talking about two things happening within the department. One is a cultural change of how they're managing offenders to Dave's point about revocations and sending people back. This commissioner is very focused on looking at managing folks in the community in a different way. And he has talked about the model that they've had in Rutland with what project independence and project vision and project independence is in Barry. And a whole different thing. Project vision, which really substantively changed the way they thought about offenders and the community and the relationships between all of the different programs. And that's what he's hoping to recreate and other communities across the state. And then the last thing that I just wanna throw into this thinking is that under the pandemic, DOC is proving that this is possible, what we're talking about. They have reduced the prison population by about 300 people at its peak. And you can do the math on what you save by not having folks incarcerated. So there's, I'm sure some consequences and some concerns about what is happening in the community with that reduction. But if we keep putting the right supports around the people in the community, I think we are proving that it is possible to do what this bill is proposing to do. So I really appreciate corrections work on this. It's a really significant piece of legislation. Thanks. Thank you, Marie. Diane and Chip, I forgot I was muted. You're welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I totally agree with this concept and we've seen it play out and we've had conversations in our committee. It's very similar to the choices for care arrangement around. There's, and same thing with disabilities and community placement or action. And we've seen that it has an economic savings for the state as well as it's a better, humane day-to-day living. It's all around good. So here's my question on this. And this is where it's going to be really important that there's language that structures the savings reinvestment. So I would really ask people to take a look at what is in statute by the choices for care mandated reinvestment of those savings and then how are those savings going to be tracked? So tracking those savings for their reinvestment is also going to be really, really important because it's a yearly struggle even within our own to deal with those captured savings not being lost to the yearly budgeting pressures. So, it doesn't have to happen in this bill, but it would have to happen maybe within the report that comes out in the coming year or the update of the work that they do of those nine reinvestment working group. That would be my thought would be also to add that they include how are they tracking and by statute offering language to support that reinvestment savings are not lost. Does that make sense? Okay. Thank you, Diane. You're welcome. If anyone want to respond to that, it wasn't a question, it was a statement, but. I think our committee would be open to that and it would be very helpful. Thank you, Diane. Chip. I'll be very brief. I just can't let it go without being said that when we think about the return on investment here, it's importantly about saving in the corrections budget, but it also, what we're getting out of this investment is much better and much increased programming for preventing domestic violence, which has the benefits that are obvious. We were talking about workforce development, which is good for Vermont as a whole, but also for the better outcomes for those people who are moving out of corrections and into the communities. Just the obvious return besides the savings are just important to note here. And I just didn't want to let it go without being said. I think Chip has hit it appropriately in that we really need to look at what outcomes do we want for our offenders and our communities? And are we being successful in achieving those outcomes? Thank you, Chip, and thank you, Alice. Kimberly. This is sort of tying on with what Chip said, and I just would throw it in here. Getting to the workforce supports, we know that a lot of the programming that happens upstream within DOC is critical. And I know that there's been an effort in your committee to really look at what's happening with the women's correctional facility because of the constraints on that facility, not being able to do all the programming. So I think, I know that you're working on that as well. And I've attended a lot of the meetings over the summer that led to this bill. And I think it's really heartening to see it all come together. The only thing that just slightly catches my attention, though, is that there are quite a lot of reporting requirements, but I'm not here to judge that per se, but that is just one thing that does strike me. But thank you for bringing this forward. Thank you, Kimberly. Mary? Yeah, to Kimberly's point, and I didn't see in scanning through the reports, their meetings, their groups, so there must be a cost there to that. And I don't see that broken out or how we're supposed to break that out. Can you help us understand that? Well, I know with the working group piece with the council state governments, that's a continuation of the current work group. There are four legislators on that work group. There's two senators and two House members. So there would be a legislative expense there. All the other folks are doing that in the role of their paid job. So there shouldn't be expenses per se for that. In terms of the parole, the presumptive parole, that is with, help me there, Kurt, I think it's with the courts or with the parole board. Come on, parole board. So that's work that they would be doing. And then the agency of human services data collection, that's within the agency of human services. So we didn't get down into the nuts and bolts of the money and the cost of that. So it's a justifiable question. I don't know if it would increase enough for their workload to have an impact on appropriations or operating costs. So Alice, just to take those one at a time, the continuation of the CSG work group, we need to break that down. How many times are you gonna meet, et cetera? Maybe we can take that offline. I don't know that the committee needs wants to sit through all of that, but let's somehow we need to budget that. So maybe you guys could give some thought to what that ought to look like. But, and from what you said, the remainder of the work is for state agency folks. So this is the only additional cost that needs to be worked out, am I right? That's my understanding. Even the racial disparities, they're working with the racial disparities, criminal and juvenile justice advisory panel and the executive director of the racial equity, the superior judge, attorney general, and they would be working with a crime research group. So I don't know if that might trigger something. Yeah, would we have to pay for that? For them, yeah. And then you're involving the sentencing commission in that too. The sentencing commission is ongoing, is my understanding. House judiciary did a lot of work on the section dealing with the racial disparity and the sentencing commission piece because representative LaLan is part of the sentencing commission. So they changed this section quite a bit. In terms of the working group with the council state governments, you know, in this COVID world, I don't know how many times they would meet. We met last year, probably six times at the most. I don't know in this world, if we would, we certainly would be doing it by noon so you wouldn't have travel expenses. You wouldn't have the per diem but you wouldn't have your travel and meal expenses. Is that something the small group of corrections or maybe judiciary people could tell us what we need to budget for? Could you guys, I mean, we don't know. I don't know how many times or whatever. So could you make a recommendation to us? In terms of the racial disparity, I think that would be a conversation with the House Judiciary Committee to see what they have envisioned in terms of the work group of the council state governments. I would reach out to the council state governments and see what their thought is because they would be using that work group as a real check-in in terms of the work that they're doing. And so at this point, Mary, you have the corrections budget. I would circle back with Maxine and her committee and get the number of meetings and also determine a fee or a cost for the group. Yep, okay. Because we're not gonna be able to hash it out here without judiciary at the table. So if you could... Yep, we'll do. And we would do an amendment. We could offer an amendment on this bill to identify what those costs would be. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Dave? Excuse me. Just an observation, if assuming they serve 106 to 135 people, let's say the middle of that mid-range that has 120 with a $2 million budget that's 16,000 plus spent per person, which is a lot less than what the cost of incarceration is. Costs that might be higher than that because as Mary said that we are able to match Medicaid, that goes up. But I'm wondering my question though, does the department, they must have, but I worry the administrative capacity to manage this. They won't be getting any, do they get a piece of admin? Do they get like 8% of this? Is there any conversation of that? And then finally, was a $2 million figure based on, we've done this in the past for 16 to 20,000 per person, we can serve 100, it's 2 million, et cetera. Or was that just based on a surround figure and it's the wisdom of the experience around the table? So does the department have the capacity? Where did the two main come from? Well, the department will have the capacity, either you got to house them in a correctional facility or you work with your community partners for that. Alice, I don't mean to interrupt, but you mentioned before that the commissioner weighed in and support the people. Yes, yes. He strongly supports beefing up the community systems because no way are offenders going to be successful unless you beef up those community systems and bring in our other partners. So in terms of the 2 million, that came out of Senate to the cherry committee. So I am not sure exactly what their thought was. I think they thought that 2 million was something that they could do with the one-time money, that that would be the appropriate amount from the one-time money. And they took it out, the Senate Appropriations Committee took this $2 million out of the bill when it went there and put it on their list for FY 21 using one-time money. So we've picked up what Senate judiciary put in the bill originally so we can continue the conversation here in the house and in your committee to see what are the appropriate appropriations and where should they go? Yeah, thank you. We didn't wanna lose that we need to do an investment in our communities upfront. And when the commissioner weighed in on support of this bill, did he raise any concerns about the workload or any? Okay. No, we don't. Clear indication, but usually, usually if they do see an issue that is one of the first things that they raise it would be the impact of work on their department. But they- I think it's more if we don't do these investments, the costs of DOC are gonna continue to go up. Thank you, Alice. Thank you, Dave. Mary, your hand is- Is that up? No, no, sorry. And so I think I'm going to draw this conversation to a close because we really need to get back to our quarter year bill. If there's any further questions, Mary has the corrections budget. If you would funnel your questions through Mary and she'll either send them out to corrections or to judiciary. We do need to find out what the costs are and with the work group and with the one entity that would be consulting that CSG has recommended. And we also need to consider where we might find these one-time monies if this is a priority of the legislature. And so if Alice and Butch, you could just weigh in on ranking this as a priority bill for us to consider at this time when we're in such tumultuous, the landscape isn't exactly stable. So if you could just give some reassurances, this has been brought before us of the priority level. One thing is that in the work with the Council of State Governments, there is further work that the Department of Justice on the federal end can provide to the Council of State Governments and us, but they need to see the state taking a step forward in terms of the initiatives and some funding of supporting those initiatives in order to get the federal assistance. So that's the next step here and that's why S338 is a priority and is so important for us to continue our work with the Council of State Governments on this evidence-based justice reinvestment piece because now we can bring in the Feds Department of Justice to help us. Thank you, Alice. Butch, did you want to weigh in anything else? No, I think I'm done for now. Thank you, I'm sure. Okay, thank you. So thank you all for coming in. Representative Taylor, thank you. Emmons and Shaw, it's nice to see the three representatives from another committee. We'll be seeing you shortly on the floor, probably at the 330 caucus of the whole. Great, thank you. Thank you.